Tom Jolliffe on the 1970s and why it is the best era in cinema history…

There will always be a great deal of debate about the best era for cinema. For my two cents I’ll say with a great deal of assurance that the best period in cinema history was the 1970’s. There was most certainly a transition through that decade which saw the gritty cinema of the late 60’s onward, into the birth of the blockbuster as we know it today.

You could almost split the 70’s into two categories, although I will make some mention of sub-categories like the Blaxploitation period too. On one hand directors were beginning to really move as far from the traditional classic Hollywood production code as they could. Boundaries were being pushed and optimism was being replaced with deeply pessimistic work. It wasn’t all happy endings. Things were getting dark, reflecting
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I can’t listen to The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” anymore without wincing. Ignoring Mick Jagger’s protests, Donald Trump co-opted this ode to excess and turned it into an anthem of darkness during his presidential campaign. Not since Francis Ford Coppola used Wagner’s “Song of the Valkyries” to harken the helicopter attack in “Apocalypse Now” has a piece of music carried with it a feeling of dread and impending doom.
Now it’s Elton John who must be up in arms over the use of “Rocket Man” as a derivative of Trump
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#RocketMan isn’t the only trending hashtag as a result of Donald Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday.
#TrumpsUNSpeechtheMovie also took over Twitter Tuesday after the speech in which Trump called North Korean leader “Rocket Man” and threatened to “totally detstroy” that nation if the United States or its allies are threatened. The new Twitter game has users coming up with parodies of movie titles to fit the all-over-the-place speech.
Some standouts include “How To Lose An Ally In 10 Minutes,” playing off of the Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey rom-com. “Apocalypse Soon” plays off the classic movie “Apocalypse Now,
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“Nothing is ever enough – I couldn’t create if it was!” You have to admire writer-director Darren Aronofsky’s almost religious devotion to the parable-like possibilities of hyperventilating, surrealist cinema. Having caught critics’ attention with the cult low-budget sci-fi oddity Pi and proved his gritty mettle with Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky gave us time-straddling cosmic madness in The Fountain, combined ballet with metamorphic fantasy in Black Swan, and conjured gigantic rock-monsters in the quasi-biblical babble-fest Noah. Now with Mother!, a paranoid nightmare that starts out like Polanski’s Repulsion and winds up closer to Apocalypse Now, he has stretched the envelope of outrageous mainstream cinema to breaking point – and beyond.

We start and end in flames, with an image of a fiery face giving way to a mysterious crystal, which
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Last month, Lynn Novick traveled to Vietnam with her new documentary about the American war there, co-directed with Ken Burns. Novick had previously spent time in the country, gathering material for the doc, which tells the story of the war from both the American and Vietnamese perspective. On her return, she held four screenings of a condensed version of the film — one for living witnesses interviewed for the series, one for writers and critics, and two more for public audiences in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, respectively. Novick was wary.

“It’s always with some trepidation that we show something that we’ve worked on to the people who lived through it, because how’s it going to jibe with what they remember and what they saw?” she says. “But it was amazing. We heard over and over again the feeling that the film was honest and realistic in depicting the true suffering and misery of
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Maybe it’s the driven mad ending to Apocalypse Now (and to director Francis Ford Coppola), but there’s something fitting about an acclaimed director emerging from a long absence to make a film that features the backdrop of a colonial jungle. The irony of these films is that the elements are unforgiving to those attempting to conquer—unable to live as they desire—yet they refuse to allow the conquered to live without them. Terence Malick did just that in the Solomon Islands with The Thin Red Line after a 20-year absence and now Argentina’s Lucrecia Martel—…
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Oscar-nominated for “Far From Heaven” and “Carol,” Lachman is a frequent collaborator of director Todd Haynes. This year’s celebration of his work is pegged to their latest, “Wonderstruck,” which is part of the festival’s main program. But Lachman’s career outstretches those three movies alone, from working with icons of pop (Madonna) and humanitarianism (Mother Teresa), to collaborations with artists at the beginning (Sofia Coppola) and end (Robert Altman) of their careers.

One of the bigger films to make the cut in this year’s lineup should take no one by surprise: “Downsizing” (12/22, Paramount), Payne’s long-gestating near-future workplace satire starring Matt Damon, will screen at the festival where Payne has been a regular for years (both as a filmmaker and audience member). The movie opened the Venice Film Festival earlier this week, and was followed
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There is a certain relish to the way Scott Glenn describes a knife. His voice – a sort of Midwestern drawl that has a touch of Pittsburgh flint and a lot of Ketchum, Idaho, where he's called home for decades, in it – stays slow and steady as he talks about some of the various weapons he's been using in his martial-arts training lately. You can tell from the gleam in his eye, however, that the actor is getting a serious kick out detailing his recent discoveries in self-defense cutlery.

“Orphan Black” came to an end after five seasons last night, but its story goes much further back. Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, the clone drama’s co-creators, were developing the series for more than a dozen years before it premiered — a long journey they discussed with Vulture to mark the occasion of the series finale.

“A while ago, John and I looked at our original notes from 2001, about what the story would be,” Manson said of the show’s narrative trajectory and whether it ended the way they imagined it would. “Even those first cursory notes really have the seed of ‘Orphan Black’ in them.”

Still, it wasn’t exactly what they had in mind: “Graeme and I always imagined a bit of an ‘Apocalypse Now’ type of ending,” Fawcett admitted. “In the end,
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“Orphan Black” came to an end after five seasons last night, but its story goes much further back. Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, the clone drama’s co-creators, were developing the series for more than a dozen years before it premiered — a long journey they discussed with Vulture to mark the occasion of the series finale.

Read More:‘Orphan Black’ Review: Series Finale ‘Rights the Wrongs’ of an Uneven But Ultimately Satisfying Season

“A while ago, John and I looked at our original notes from 2001, about what the story would be,” Manson said of the show’s narrative trajectory and whether it ended the way they imagined it would. “Even those first cursory notes really have the seed of ‘Orphan Black’ in them.”

Still, it wasn’t exactly what they had in mind: “Graeme and I always imagined a bit of an ‘Apocalypse Now’ type of ending,” Fawcett admitted. “In the end,
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[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers from “To Right the Wrongs of Many,” the series finale of “Orphan Black.”]

BBC America has dubbed “Orphan Black’s” last season “The Final Trip,” and it has been an uneven ride of highs and lows that nevertheless ended satisfactorily.

The season began with the promise that Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) and her sestras would take a stand once and for all to take down the shadowy man who was behind behind their cloning and who still wanted to control their biology. It was exciting to think of the Ledas coming together in force to finally stick it to the man.

Unfortunately putting a face to the name P.T. Westmoreland (Stephen McHattie) proved to be too much of a bizarre distraction. While his Victorian affectations were entertaining, his entire storyline this year — from the “Island of Dr. Moreau” vibes to that twisted Victorian dress-up dinner party — felt far too cartoonish to be worthy of the series’ big bad. After a while, all of
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[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers from “To Right the Wrongs of Many,” the series finale of “Orphan Black.”]

BBC America has dubbed “Orphan Black’s” last season “The Final Trip,” and it has been an uneven ride of highs and lows that nevertheless ended satisfactorily.

The season began with the promise that Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) and her sestras would take a stand once and for all to take down the shadowy man who was behind behind their cloning and who still wanted to control their biology. It was exciting to think of the Ledas coming together in force to finally stick it to the man.

Unfortunately putting a face to the name P.T. Westmoreland (Stephen McHattie) proved to be too much of a bizarre distraction. While his Victorian affectations were entertaining, his entire storyline this year — from the “Island of Dr. Moreau” vibes to that twisted Victorian dress-up dinner party — felt far too cartoonish to be worthy of the series’ big bad. After a while, all of
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When Lucasfilm announced plans for a standalone Han Solo prequel, there didn't seem to be an actor in Hollywood who didn't want a crack at playing the younger version of the character made famous by Harrison Ford. Producer Kathleen Kennedy and the film's original directing team looked at a slew of actors between the ages of 17 and 34. At one point, the short list reportedly included Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Dave Franco, Jack Raynor, Scott Eastwood, Logan Lerman, Emory Cohen, and Blake Jenner, before the role was ultimately given to Alden Aron-Reich. But the search for the original Han Solo was just as wide searching, and possibly a little more difficult to nail down, with quit a few Hollywood icons targeted for the role.

Since the release of the original Star Wars film in 1977, a slew of names have surfaced as prospective would-be Millennium Falcon piloting smugglers who were nearly cast
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With Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones already set to star, the sci-fi thriller Ad Astra is filling out its supporting cast, with Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga signing on to star. Unfortunately, no details have been given regarding her character yet, and it isn't clear how many more primary roles still need to be filled out for this sci-fi thriller. This film continues the successful partnership between Brad Pitt's production company Plan B and New Regency, who have teamed up on critically-acclaimed films such as The Big Short, Best Picture Winner 12 Years A Slave and director Ryan Coogler's upcoming feature Wrong Answer.

The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the story centers on one man's journey across the solar system to find his long-missing father, a "renegade scientist who poses a threat to all mankind." The first report on this project back in June revealed that Brad Pitt is playing Roy McBride,
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“Golgotha combines my obsession with religion and science fiction, and was a fun project to do,” said Hawkins. “Bryan Hill and I always looked at this as a kind of Apocalypse Now meets 2001 mash-up.”

In the near future, a group of scientists and military operatives are sent on an interplanetary mission to develop Earth’s first off-world colony. While the crew of the Golgotha hibernates for travel, technology on Earth continues to advance—so much so that when they land on the planet, the crew finds it already inhabited…by another team from Earth that arrived years before they have.

Now the crew of the Golgotha find themselves relics of their own time,
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Allen Hughes’ well-cut music documentary is populated with enough industry giants that just listening to them babble for four hours would’ve been well worth the time. But Hughes skillfully incorporated historical footage with those fascinating reflections, and never is the combination more captivating than in Episode 3.

Taking us back to the release of Dr. Dre’s “Chronic” album, Episode 3 features vital discussions about free speech, how rap was a misunderstood tool of rebellion, and why Jimmy Iovine and Dre persevered despited persecution. It’s not just about overcoming censorship and catering to the demand of customers: “The Defiant Ones” shows and tells us why this was a make-or-break moment for the most popular music in the country (especially as coastal rap battles turned deadly).

Allen Hughes’ well-cut music documentary is populated with enough industry giants that just listening to them babble for four hours would’ve been well worth the time. But Hughes skillfully incorporated historical footage with those fascinating reflections, and never is the combination more captivating than in Episode 3.

Taking us back to the release of Dr. Dre’s “Chronic” album, Episode 3 features vital discussions about free speech, how rap was a misunderstood tool of rebellion, and why Jimmy Iovine and Dre persevered despited persecution. It’s not just about overcoming censorship and catering to the demand of customers: “The Defiant Ones” shows and tells us why this was a make-or-break moment for the most popular music in the country (especially as coastal rap battles turned deadly).

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